Developmental Theory It outlines the process of growth & development of humans as orderly & predictable, beginning with conception

& ending with death. The progress & behaviors of an individual within each stage are unique. The growth & development of an individual are influenced by heredity, temperament, emotional, & physical environment, life experiences & health status.

Nurses being familiar with Erikson's Development Theory can "...help in analyzing patient's symptomatic behavior in the context of traumatic past experiences and struggles with current developmental tasks" (Current Nursing, 2011). Nurses can help identify inpatients faulty behavior based on past experiences and stages and help them seek psychological assistance such as a counselor. Nurses can help patients who are having difficulty with developmental phases by providing care directed to the appropriate stage (Current Nursing, 2011).

How has Erikson's developmental theory influenced my nursing career? I currently work in the Critical Care setting where I see a wide variety of patients of all ages and backgrounds. I feel that being familiar with Erikson's theory allows me to be more sensitive to my patients and possibly understand more where they are coming from. Being familiar with this theory allows me to not take things patients do personally but instead realize that the patients might have had difficulty in life or one of Erikson's stages. For example, I had a very rude and grouchy gentleman who was 75 years old. Nothing I could would please him. I learned later that his wife had cheated on him with his best friend and one of his children had died. Realizing these things, I was able to take care of the patient in a more sensitive light. EIGHT STAGES OF THE LIFE CYCLE Erikson explains 8 developmental stages in which physical, cognitive, instinctual, and sexual changes combine to trigger an internal crisis whose resolution results in either psychosocial regression or growth and the development of specific virtues. Erikson defined virtue as "inherent strength". Related Psychosocial Stage Age Virtue Psychopathology Trust vs. mistrust birth18 months Hope Psychosis

Addictions Depression Paranoia Autonomy vs. shame and ~18 months doubt Obsessions Will Compulsions Impulsivity Conversion disorder Phobia Initiative vs. guilt ~3 years Purpose Psychosomatic disorder Inhibition Creative inhibition Industry vs. inferiority Competence Inertia Delinquent behavior Identity vs. role confusion ~13 years Fidelity Gender-related identity disorders Borderline psychotic episodes Schizoid personality disorder Intimacy vs. isolation ~20s Love Distantiation Generativity vs.stagnation Integrity vs. despair Midlife crisis ~40s Care Premature invalidism ~60s Wisdom Extreme alienation

Trust Versus Mistrust (Birth to About 18 Months) The infant is taking the world in through the mouth, eyes, ears, and sense of touch. A baby whose mother is able to anticipate and respond to its needs in a consistent and timely manner despite its oral aggression will learn to tolerate the inevitable moments of frustration and deprivation

A person who, as a result of severe disturbances in the earliest dyadic relationships, fails to develop a basic sense of trust or the virtue of hope may be predisposed as an adult to the profound withdrawal and regression characteristic of schizophrenia (Newton DS, Newton PM, 1998). Autonomy Versus Shame and Doubt (About 18 Months to About 3 Years) "This stage, therefore, becomes decisive for the ratio between loving good will and hateful selfinsistence, between cooperation and willfulness, and between self-expression and compulsive selfrestraint or meek compliance." - Erikson This oral-sensory stage of infancy, marked by the potential development of basic trust aiming toward the achievement of a sense of hope. Here, the child will develop an appropriate sense of autonomy, otherwise doubt and shame will undermine free will. An individual who becomes fixated at the transition between the development of hope and autonomous will, with its residue of mistrust and doubt, may develop paranoic fears of persecution (Newton DS, Newton PM, 1998). Other disturbances of improper transition of this stage results in perfectionism, inflexibility, stinginess and ruminative and ritualistic behavior of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. Initiative Versus Guilt (About 3 Years to About 5 Years) Here, the childs task is to develop a sense of initiative as opposed to further shame or guilt. The lasting achievement of this stage is a sense of purpose. The child's increasing mastery of locomotor and language skills expands its participation in the outside world and stimulates omnipotent fantasies of wider exploration and conquest Industry Versus Inferiority (About 5 Years to About 13 Years) Here the child is in school-age , so called stage of latency. He tries to master the crisis of industry versus inferiority aiming toward the development of a sense of competence. Identity Versus Role Confusion (About 13 Years to About 21 Years) At puberty, the fifth stage, the task of adolescence is to navigate ther identity crisis as each individual struggles with a degree of identity confusion. The lasting outcome of this stage can be a capacity for fidelity. Intimacy Versus Isolation (About 21 Years to About 40 Years)

Young adulthood, at the stage of genitality or sixth stage, is marked by the crisis of intimacy versus isolation, out of which may come the achievement of a capacity forlove. Generativity Versus Stagnation (About 40 Years to About 60 Years) "Generativity is primarily the concern for establishing and guiding the next generation."-Erikson Care is the virtue that curresponding to this stage. This failure of generativity can lead to profound personal stagnation, masked by a variety of escapisms, such as alcohol and drug abuse, and sexual and other infidelities.Mid-life crisis may occur. Integrity Versus Despair (About 60 Years to Death) "The acceptance of one's one and only life cycle and of the people who have become significant to it as something that had to be and that, by necessity, permitted of no substitutions." The individual in possession of the virtue of wisdom and a sense of integrity has room to tolerate the proximity of death and to achieve. When the attempt to attain integrity has failed, the individual may become deeply disgusted with the external world, and contemptuous of persons as well as institutions. NURSING IMPLICATIONS Application of Erikson's stages of psychosocial development helps in analysing patient's symptomatic behavior in the context of truamatic past experineces and struggles with current developmental tasks. When patients' resolutions of previous psychosocial stages have been so faulty as to seriously compromise their adult development, they have the opportunity to rework early development through the relationship with the therapist. (Newton DS, Newton PM, 1998). "The object of psychotherapy is not to head off future conflict but to assist the patient in emerging from each crisis "with an increased sense of inner unity, with an increase of good judgment, and an increase in the capacity `to do well' according to his own standards and to the standards of those who are significant to him." (Erikson in Identity: Youth and Crisis)